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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Quando

Apr 7–9, 2022
530 W 27th St, New York, NY 10001

We read the promos so you won’t have to, and sometimes we’re left scratching our heads. Here, in part, is the latest pitch from the anarchists at Heartbeat Opera, a floating circus that works on a shoestring and flourishes on the fringe. “Music from Verdi’s operas La Traviata and Don Carlo and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice are [sic] repurposed and refashioned into a 25-minute short film that follows a starry-eyed young couple as their night on the town unravels into a surrealist swirl of decadence.” And when that’s over and done with, they run the film again, this time with “two live composer-performers actively disrupting and reconstituting the music from the score for a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience.” We’re promised that no two performances will be the same, but are they ever? —Matthew Gurewitsch

Brian Vu and Lauren Michelle in “Quando.” Courtesy of Heartbeat Opera.